This past week and a half has reinforced my strong belief that education needs to make people globally minded – a sentiment that is, thankfully, put into practice every day at CTU.

The Boston marathon bombing was atrocious, no doubt. But the news coverage in its aftermath would have us believing it was the most atrocious thing to happen in the world in months. I’m sorry, but it probably wasn’t even the most atrocious thing to happen in the world that week!

I don’t mean to be political. My point is that I worry that we, as a society, are becoming too quick to victimize ourselves, which creates a false barrier between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

CTU was fortunate to welcome eighth president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, to campus last week – a day after the Boston bombing. In 1997, Mrs. McAleese was elected to lead the independent Republic of Ireland, even though she had grown up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, amid much violence.

In her candid talk, she took the words right out of my mouth: “If you just think of the dreadful events yesterday in Boston; the sheer craven, awful, anguish that is in people’s hearts today – who set out yesterday healthfully running, and today face life without limbs, face life without a child, face life without a life’s partner – well, multiply that up, because for 40 years that was how Belfast, Northern Ireland – my home – was. Everyday that possibility of a Boston existed, and probably happened.”

Forty years. That, for me, put the events in Boston into a proper context. We are incredibly fortunate that something like Boston doesn’t happen every day in our country. But not every country is that fortunate. Leaders of every corner of society moving forward need to understand the global context in a meaningful way. The world is too small for us to continue to think that the things that make us different from one another are bigger or stronger than the things that make us alike.

I have great confidence that the international exposure CTU students have, both inside the classroom and out in the world, will go a tremendously long way to build a more peaceful global family.